Linguistic and cultural images of Moscow and Warsaw in Russian and Polish language parodies

Abstract

The subject of this study is the parodies of the Russian and Polish languages, containing ideas about Moscow and Warsaw. The material was proverbs and sayings recorded in the dictionary of V.I. Dahl "Proverbs of the Russian people" and the collection of Y. Krzyzanowski "Nowa księga przysłów i wyrażeń przysłowiowych polskich". The Paremiological Foundation plays a special role in preserving the cultural memory of the linguistic community, expresses the most important and stable stereotypes of national consciousness. At the same time, the ideas verbalized in the parodies can have both a universal, timeless character, and fix the features of the socio-historical context, the material and spiritual culture of society in a certain epoch. In the course of the research, the author identifies, analyzes and compares the components of the linguistic and cultural images of Moscow and Warsaw, verbalized in the parodies of the Polish and Russian languages. In this work, the method of synchronous description was used, as well as methods of semantic and linguistic-cultural analysis. The scientific novelty of this work lies in the multicomponent analysis and comparison of the expression of the image of Moscow and Warsaw in Russian and Polish paremiology. In the course of the study, it was possible to establish the multicomponence of linguistic and cultural images of Moscow and Warsaw. Russian and Polish parodies contain ideas about these cities as the centers of economic, political and cultural life in Russia and Poland. At the same time, the parodies express the traditional attitude towards Moscow and Warsaw as rich, beautiful cities with a high standard of living, developed trade, but at the same time expensive and dangerous. The parodies characterize the residents of Moscow and Warsaw, their habits and mores, and also refer to the role of individual streets and districts in the life of cities. The study also found that the Russian language parodies contain ideas about Moscow as a city associated with important events in the history of Russia, a city with rich architecture and certain relief features. The above-mentioned ideas about Warsaw were not recorded in the Polish language parodies.